While addressing a group of trainee Indian Foreign Service officers,Chief Election Commissioner said the time had come for the Election Commission to facilitate postal voting for Non-Resident Indians. The EC’s proposal for introducing Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballots is currently pending with the government. 

What is the current process of voting by NRIs/overseas Indian voters?

Ø  Currently, Election Commission of India (ECI) allows NRIs to register as overseas electors as long as they have not acquired the citizenship of another country.

Ø  An NRI can vote in the constituency in which his/her place of residence, as mentioned in the passport, is located.

Ø  He/she can only vote in person and will have to produce the passport in original at the polling station for establishing identity.

Ø  Voting rights for NRIs were introduced only in 2011, through an amendment to the Representation of the People Act 1950.

Ø  As per the government, total number of overseas voters on January 1, 2023 stood at over 1.15 lakh.

Ø  In Lok Sabha elections of 2019, roughly 25,000 of them flew to India to vote.

Origin of the idea of postal ballot -

Ø  A 12-member committee was set up after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections to study mainly three options — voting by post, voting at an Indian mission abroad and online voting.

Ø  The committee ruled out online polling as it felt this could compromise “secrecy of voting”.

Ø  It also shot down the proposal to vote at Indian missions abroad as they do not have adequate resources.

Ø  In 2015, the panel recommended that NRIs should be given the additional alternative options of e-postal ballot and proxy voting.

Ø  The EC, in 2020, had written to the Law Ministry proposing NRIs be allowed to vote through postal ballots.

Ø  Following this, the matter has been under consideration by the government.

What has been proposed by the EC?

Ø  To extend voting facility for NRI electors, EC had proposed the extension of Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS) facility to these voters.

Ø  ETPBS enables the voters to cast their vote on an electronically received postal ballot from their preferred location.

ETPBS facility is so far available only to service voters, including —

Ø  members of the armed forces and central armed police forces posted outside their home constituencies and

Ø  members of Indian embassies and diplomatic missions.

Ø  Voters on election duty

Ø  Voter above 80 years of age or person with disabilities (PwD)

Ø  Voter who are under preventive detention

Ø  Media persons (Journalist)

Ø  According to the EC proposal, any NRI interested in voting through the postal ballot in an election will have to inform the Returning Officer (RO).

Ø  RO should be informed in a time period not later than five days after the notification of the election.

Ø  On receiving such information, the RO will dispatch the ballot paper electronically.

Ø  The NRI voters will download the ballot paper, mark their preference on the printout and send it back.

Kerala HC recently quashed a case filed under India’s child protection law - the POCSO Act, against a woman accused of subjecting her children to an obscene act.

Recent case -

Ø  In 2020, a Kerala-based women’s rights activist, posted a video on social media that showed her two children (8 and 14), painting on her “semi-nude torso”.

Ø  There was outrage, and Police registered a case charging her with offences under the POCSO Act, 2012.

Ø  The offences under the Act involves sexual assault by a child’s relative and using children for pornographic purposes.

Ø  The police also charged the activist under -

Ø  The Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 [for publishing or electronically transmitting obscene material, which depicts children in sexually explicit acts], and

Ø  The Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act, 2015 [for depicting children in an obscene, indecent, or sexually explicit manner].

About the Kerala HC’s Verdict -

Ø  Dismissing the POCSO charges against her, the court said the provisions of the POSCO Act are attracted when a child’s relative commits “sexual assault”.

Ø  However, “sexual assault” [under Section 7 of the Act] requires “sexual intent” while touching the child’s private parts or making the child touch one’s own or another person’s private parts.

Ø  The essential ingredient of “sexual intent” in POCSO offences was missing in this case, also there is nothing to show that the children were used for pornography.

Ø  There is nothing wrong with a mother allowing her body to be used as a canvas by her children to paint to sensitise them.

Relying on the SC’s rulings in —

Ø  K.S. Puttaswamy v Union of India (this 2017 case recognised the right to privacy as a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution) and

Ø  Joseph Shine v. Union of India (this 2018 case read down Section 497 of the IPC),

Ø  The court underlined women’s bodily autonomy as a facet of human dignity.

Ø  Clearing the accused of charges under the IT Act, the court said that the provisions of the Act are attracted only when the material depicts children in an obscene or indecent, or sexually explicit manner.

Definition of obscenity -

The Supreme Court —

Ø  In 1996, the top court said that depicting nudity and sexual violence in the film ‘Bandit Queen’ did not amount to obscenity as it was done to underscore a social reality.

Ø  In 2014, the top court held that a nude picture cannot be called obscene unless it tends to arouse feelings or reveal an overt sexual desire.

The Kerala HC —

Ø  Asserted that “nudity and obscenity are not always synonymous”, and it was wrong to consider nudity immoral.

Ø  We have murals, statues, and art of deities displayed in ancient temples all over the country, and such paintings are considered artistic and holy.

Ø  While providing examples of men’s body painting traditions during Puli Kali folk festivals and Theyyam rituals in Kerala, the court said -

Ø  “Even though the idols of all Goddesses are bare-chested, when one prays at the temple, the feeling is not of sexual explicitness but of divinity.”

Ø  These are double standards that allow men to walk around without shirts while women’s bodies are “overly sexualised” and construed as something “meant for erotic purposes”.

About the POCSO Act -

Ø  The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act is a comprehensive act that came into force in November 2012.

Ø  The Ministry of Women and Child Development introduced the act.

Ø  Commonly known as POCSO Act, it deals with offences related to children.

Ø  This act addresses heinous crimes and protects a child from sexual assault, sexual harassment and pornography.

Ø  The POCSO Act, 2012 lays down the punishment for exposing children to any kind of sexual offence.

Ø  The enactment of this act increased the scope of reporting sexual crimes against children.

What was the need of this act?

Ø  The act was required as the Indian Penal Code was inadequate to address Sexual Assault, Sexual Harassment, Pornography and Sexual Violence against boys and a child.

Ø  The act is gender-neutral and recognises both girls and a boy as a victim of sexual violence.

Ø  The POCSO was also required as the procedure for the crime reported under IPC is more rigid and also not child friendly.

Ø  Also, India is a signatory of the United Nations Convention on Rights of Children (UNCRC).

Ø  The POCSO Act, 2012 was enacted to ensure child-friendly procedure for the filing of the report and fulfils the requirement of Article 15(3) of the Constitution of India. Clause 3 of Article 15 of the Constitution gives powers to the legislature to create special provisions for women and children.

Features of POCSO Act -

Ø  The Act defines the various types of offences, touch-based, non-touch, penetrative, pornographic crimes etc., in detail and doesn't leave any kind of offence.

Ø  The act also defines the person under the age of 18 as a child.

Ø  The act also has a feature to give compensation to the victim.

Ø  Only the POCSO Court has the jurisdiction to deal with the matter related to the act.

Ø  The INNOCENT TILL PROVEN GUILTY principle does not apply in the matter related to the POCSO Act, 2012. Once a complaint gets filed in this case, it gets presumed that the intention was to commit a sexual act.

Ø  If a child goes through abuse at home, he will get relocated by the Child Welfare Commission for care and protection.

The Ministry of Power has asked the Central Electricity Regulatory Authority (CERC) to initiate the process of coupling multiple power exchanges.

About Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) -

Ø  CERC — a key regulator of the power sector in India, is a statutory body functioning with quasi-judicial status under the Electricity Act 2003.

Ø  It was initially constituted in 1998 under the Ministry of Power's Electricity Regulatory Commissions Act, 1998 for —

Ø  Rationalisation & regulation of electricity tariffs,

Ø  Transparent policies regarding subsidies,

Ø  Promotion of efficient and environmentally benign policies, and

Ø  CERC was instituted primarily to regulate —

Ø  The tariff of Power Generating companies owned or controlled by the government of India, and any other generating company which has a composite scheme for power generation and interstate transmission of energy

Ø  In accordance with the Electricity Act 2003, the CERC is also responsible for development of the power market in India for efficient, transparent and competitive price discovery through power exchanges.

Power Exchanges in India -

Ø  At present India has three power exchanges - Indian Electricity Exchange (IEX), Power Exchange of India (PXIL) and Hindustan Power Exchange (HPX) functioning with guidance from the CERC.

Indian Electricity Exchange (IEX) —

Ø  IEX is approved and regulated by the CERC and has been operating since 2008 and is a publicly listed company with NSE and BSE since 2017.

Ø  It is India’s premier energy marketplace, providing a nationwide automated trading platform for the physical delivery of electricity, renewables, and certificates.

Ø  It is powered by state-of-the-art, intuitive and customer centric technology, enabling efficient price discovery and facilitating the ease of power procurement.

Ø  More recently, IEX has pioneered cross border electricity trade expanding its power market beyond India in an endeavour to create an integrated South Asian Power Market.

Ø  The IEX has the largest market share of 88% in total power trade at multiple exchanges in India.

Power Exchange India Limited (PXIL) —

Ø  It is India’s first institutionally promoted Power Exchange that provides innovative and credible solutions to transform the Indian Power Markets since 2008.

Ø  Both IEX and PXIL have started their real-time market (RTM) trading platforms for electricity transactions in 2020. The real-time market is a platform widely used across the world.

Hindustan Power Exchange (HPX) —

Ø  It is the new age power exchange in the Indian Electricity Market that provides a comprehensive market platform for different electricity products.

Ø  It provides opportunity to market participants to transact in the most equitable and transparent manner through advanced technology and customised value-added services.

What will be the advantages of Coupling the Exchanges?

Ø  In the present scenario, buyers and sellers at each exchange do trading of electricity and discover spot price separately at these exchanges.

Ø  Market coupling is done to couple different markets operating in different geographies.

Ø  After coupling of exchanges, the price discovery of energy at trading platforms would be uniform, transparent and is expected to bring down power tariffs significantly.

Ø  Government has requested the CERC to initiate the process of consultation and finalisation of coupling.

Towards a cashless economy

Ø  According to government data, India with 89.5 million digital transactions (46% of the global real-time payments) in the year 2022 has topped the list of 5 countries (followed by Brazil, China, Thailand and South Korea) in digital payments.

India’s move towards a cashless economy -

Ø  Cashless economy refers to the economy where transactions are done using digital payment methods instead of using cash.

Ø  India’s move towards a cashless economy started nearly 3 decades ago with the introduction of online banking.

Ø  However, the digital payments ecosystem received its first real boost when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) set up the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in 2008. It was launched to shape the payments infrastructure and enable innovations.

Ø  This led to the launch of Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) in 2010 followed by the RuPay payment network, Aadhar Enabled Payment System (AEPS), Bharat QR, etc.

Ø  The 2016 launch of the Unified Payment Interface (UPI), that enabled instant real-time payment based on a unique handle linked to a mobile number, can be considered the spark that ignited this journey.

Ø  Since then, the volume of digital payments in India has grown by 50% annually to $1.5 trillion digital payment transactions as of December 2022.

Latest developments in India’s digital payment landscape -

Ø  The NPCI is now enabling non-resident Indians (NRIs) to leverage UPI in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Canada, Hong Kong, Qatar, the USA, etc.

Ø  The Indian government is expanding UPI, RuPay, and the BHIM app’s functionality in several countries to simplify cross border payment processing and strengthen interoperability.

Ø  The RBI has also recently launched the digital rupee (e₹), India’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), categorised as a legal tender in digital form.

Challenges to India’s digital payment landscape -

Ø  Lack of adequate infrastructure — In the current scenario, digital payment systems are heavily reliant on smartphones that are enabled with data connections, NFC, bluetooth, etc.

Ø  Out of India’s 800 Mn mobile phone users, only 200 Mn use smartphones. Of these, only 6 Mn are NFC-enabled.

Ø  Reach of digital penetration to last mile of customers — There is a digital divide between rural and urban India.

Ø  Prone to fraudulent transactions and cyber-attacks, rise of transactional failures, etc.

Way forward -

Ø  The RBI’s Payments Vision 2025 document — It highlights 5Is - integrity, inclusion, innovation, institutionalisation and internationalisation - for digital payment landscape.

Ø  Digital education — To make citizens aware of fraudulent practices that they can come across while making digital payments.

Ø  Use of technology — Developing a framework for an internet of things (IoT)-based payments systems that would enable customers to pay via connected devices apart from users’ phones and tablets.

Ø  Reviewing legal-institutional infrastructure — The RBI will also undertake a comprehensive review of the Payment and Settlement Systems (PSS) Act 2007, to bring it in line with India’s digital payment landscape.

Ø  Innovation and robust regulatory framework — Like the new Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, Digital India Bill to drive growth and cutting-edge innovation for digital payments, not just in the country but globally.

According to the Chief Economic Adviser (CEA), the Indian economy is now on “auto-pilot” mode and will grow steadily in the range of 6.5% to 7% till 2030, even without further reforms. He also said that the concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI) is not necessary for India since natural economic growth would take care of the country’s many aspirations. 

The idea of UBI and its appeal -

Ø  India has made considerable progress in bringing down poverty from about 70% of the population at the time of independence to about 22% in 2011-12 (Tendulkar Committee estimates).

Ø  However, the effectiveness of the targeted schemes run by central and state governments have always been in question.

Ø  Targeting is seen as being both inefficient and inequitable, a licence for corruption.

Ø  For example, the poor and deserving crowded out of BPL card ownership and the rich reaping undeserved benefits.

Ø  UBI envisages a social safety net that seeks to assure a dignified life for everyone. The Economic Survey 2017 devoted an entire chapter to its merits.

How UBI Works?

Ø  The five broad features of such schemes are —

Ø  Payments at periodic regular intervals (not one-off grants), without requirement of work or willingness to work,

Ø  Payments in cash (not food vouchers or service coupons),

Ø  Payments to individuals,

Ø  Universality, and

Ø  Unconditionality

Ø  Typically, it would require subsumption of other subsidies and allowances in order to free up resources so that a particular amount can be directed to people on a periodic basis.

Ø  There are about 950 central sector and centrally sponsored sub-schemes in the country, which accounted for about 5% of GDP by Budget allocation.

Ø  The top 11 schemes (PDS, Urea subsidy, MGNREGS, etc) accounted for about 50% of the budgetary allocation.

Ø  If the states were included, the number of schemes would be even larger.

Ø  In 2019, Sikkim has indicated that it will do away with most subsidies before launching its UBI scheme.

Ø  Global precedents -

Ø  Finland concluded a two-year experiment on its effects on unemployed citizens, which commenced in 2017.

Ø  The government of Ontario, Canada, had announced a plan to test a kind of unconditional income guarantee for up to three years.

Ø  Some cities in the Netherlands have launched municipal-level trials.

Ø  Barcelona in Spain has tested several potential changes to its anti-poverty programmes, including unconditional cash payments.

Criticism -

Ø  Will further lead to inequalities — None of the places where UBI has been tried have levels of income disparity that exist in India.

Ø  Cash transfers could be counterproductive — This is due to -

Ø  Unproductive spending, reduction in labour force, rise in inflation, moral hazard (Gandhiji – free money will make people lazy), etc.

Ø  Conditional social assistance pinpoints those who are the most vulnerable.

Ø  Perverse incentives — Such schemes dissuade people from seeking income-generating opportunities.

Way forward -

Ø  Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY) — Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress promised a minimum income support programme, under which Rs 72,000 will be transferred to the poorest 20%/5 crore families in the country.

Ø  Until a consensus on such schemes is established, support should be confined to those who may not be able to participate in economic activities and bring them to a point where they can meaningfully engage in the economy.